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It’s that time of year again. San Diego Comic-Con 2018 brings fans from around the world together to celebrate their favorite movies, TV shows, comic books, video games, and more–and brings the casts and creators of those properties along for the ride. From July 18-22, San Diego will become the hub for all things nerdy, as screenings, panels, and special events take place. While the packed schedule can be a bit intimidating, GameSpot is here to help you sort through it all and find the very best experiences you won’t want to miss.

While there are four days full of gatherings and panels, Saturday–as usual–is the biggest day of Comic-Con. This is when superheroes come out to play and the biggest movies will be on display. It all starts Saturday morning with the Warner Bros. films panel, which will likely bring fans their first looks at Aquaman, Wonder Woman 1984, and maybe even the upcoming Shazam. If TV superheroes are what you prefer, Warner Bros. TV also has a series of panels in the afternoon that bring together the casts of Supergirl, Black Lightning, Arrow, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and Krypton. There’s even a Batman: The Animated Series panel to celebrate the show’s upcoming Blu-ray release.

There’s more to Saturday than DC Entertainment, though. Other comic book-inspired panels include The Gifted and Syfy’s upcoming Deadly Class. The day also offers the first look at USA’s new TV spin-off of The Purge, as well as a Twin Peaks panel that combines the casts of the original series and Twin Peaks: The Return.

Capping off the day are Kevin Smith’s annual Hall H Q&A and a screening of the director’s cut of Deadpool 2, both of which should send those attending the con to bed laughing.

There’s plenty more to see on Friday, which you can check out in our full list of daily highlights below. Also make sure to take a look at our schedule of must-see panels for the entire convention, or else you might miss out on something amazing.

Saturday

• Warner Brothers (10:30 am – 12:30 pm; Hall H)
• Black Lightning (11:00 am – 11:45 am; Ballroom 20)
• My Hero Academia (11:15 am – 12:15 am; Room 6A)
• The Simpsons (12:00 pm – 12:45 pm; Ballroom 20)
• Krypton (12:00 pm – 12:50 pm; Indigo Ballroom)
• The Gifted (2:30 pm – 3:15 pm; Ballroom 20)
• Supergirl (3:30 pm – 4:15 pm; Ballroom 20)
• Arrow (4:15 pm – 5:00 pm; Ballroom 20)
• Batman: The Animated Series on Blu-ray (4:15 pm – 5:15 pm; Room 6DE)
• DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (5:00 pm – 5:45 pm; Ballroom 20)
• Deadpool 2 (5:15 pm – 6:15 pm; Hall H)
• The Purge: From Film to TV (5:15 pm – 6:15 pm; Room 6BCF)
• The Flash (5:45 pm – 6:30 pm; Ballroom 20)
• Deadly Class (6:00 pm – 6:50 pm; Indigo Ballroom)
• An Evening with Kevin Smith (6:45 pm – 8:15 pm; Hall H)
• Twin Peaks and the Revival of a Cult Classic (8:00 pm – 8:50 pm; Indigo Ballroom)
• Deadpool 2 screening (10:00 pm – 12:00 am; Horton Grand Theatre)

Prior to San Diego Comic-Con 2018, all we knew about Netflix and Matt Groening’s new show, Disenchantment, was what we saw in a brief teaser trailer: It’s a fantasy show, made by Groening (the creator of The Simpsons and Futurama), and it stars an irreverent, relatable princess played by Broad City‘s Abbi Jacobson. During group interviews at the convention, we learned a whole lot more.

Groening, who’s been embroiled in controversy lately, was totally focused on promoting Disenchantment during Comic-Con. Alongside longtime collaborator Josh Weinstein–who also worked on both The Simpsons and Futurama–he described his influences for the show, which go back to his childhood dreams of an “enchanted forest.”

He didn’t want to make a straight fantasy show, though, and he and Weinstein hope to subvert the genre’s many tropes–both old and new. “The princess is a perfect example,” said Weinstein. “It used to be like the Disney princess, but also, I think a lot of writers make the mistake too of going the other way–it’s like, ‘She’s totally kick-ass and she’s perfect.’ So we wanted to bust that trope and actually make, what if the princess were just like, a realistic 19-year-old young woman?”

“The tendency in a lot of epic fantasies and science fiction is ‘good vs. evil,’ and we tried to shade it a little bit,” Groening added. “[King Zog, played by Bender and Jake the Dog actor John DiMaggio] here starts out pretty villainous, but then you find out he has his reasons, and he’s not all bad. And same thing with [Princess] Bean, who’s the star of the show, and who it’s all about. She’s not perfect by any means–she makes some bad mistakes and she has a lot of flaws, but you like her anyway.”

Monty Python and the Holy Grail proved to be a big influence, unsurprisingly, given the setting. But Disenchantment‘s home on Netflix allowed Groening and Weinstein more freedom than they’re used to. Netflix has become known as a place where creators can fulfill their visions without studio meddling–for better or worse. One way they’re experimenting is with length and pacing–the show’s first episode is around 35 minutes long, and later episodes vary in length, which isn’t possible on network television.

Disenchantment also has more adult content than The Simpsons and Futurama, but they didn’t want to be gratuitous.

“If there’s nudity, it’s going to be King Zog”–i.e. a character most people wouldn’t want to see naked, Weinstein said. “If there’s violence, it has to be funny or clever so it’s not gratuitous.”

“We do have a lot of severed limbs and decapitations in this show,” Groening added.

Dropping all the episodes at once has advantages, too. “This was a different kind of storytelling than we’ve ever done, in that you don’t have to wrap things up at the end of the episode,” Groening said. “And so we have a lot of fun with cliffhangers–a literal cliffhanger at the end of Episode 1.”

“Some of the best jokes come from when you don’t have to push the story forward so much,” he continued. “On The Simpsons and Futurama and other cartoon shows like that, you’re so pushing the story forward that you don’t have time for some of the best jokes, which are free-standing.”

Groening and Weinstein said they designed the show first as if it was a drama, getting the story beats in place before subverting things to add the humor. Weinstein brought up a “rule” that he said Groening has had “from the very beginning of The Simpsons“: that characters have to react emotionally to the story in realistic ways.

“We especially thought that in a fantasy, and in an epic tale, and with a character like Bean, if those emotions, and her relationship with her dad, if those aren’t real, you’ll just disconnect, and it would just be like, a stupid parody show,” Weinstein said.

In addition to Jacobson and DiMaggio, Disenchantment’s voice actors include Eric Andre, Noel Fielding, and many other talented comedians and actors. The music is atypical for a fantasy show, created by Mark Mothersbaugh, an accomplished film composer and frontman of the band Devo. And the show will be chock full of secrets, according to Groening, from the very first scene.

“The very first thing you see is a giant clue,” he teased. “The first animation you see reveals a giant clue, and it’s staring you right in the face. And I’m being very legalese here, and my wording is very precise, so it will pay off later.”

Most of all, he said, they want to create a show that elicits a wide range of emotions–not unlike The Simpsons and Futurama before it. “We hope we choke people up and break some hearts and maybe cause a tear here and there,” Groening said. “But that’s after we make you laugh.”

Disenchantment arrives on Netflix August 17.

San Diego Comic-Con 2018 Coverage

Buckle up, fans of Joss Whedon and badass teenage vampire killers, Buffy The Vampire Slayer is getting a reboot. THR reports that 20th Century Fox television has had a reboot in mind for a while now, but talks about actually putting one in motion began in the fall of 2017. Now that the studio has hired a writer for the show, things are really starting up.

Whedon has expressed apprehension about making a Buffy reboot in the past, saying, “Luckily most of my actors still look wonderful, but I’m not worried about them being creaky. I’m more worried about me being creaky as a storyteller. You don’t want that feeling that you should have left before the encore.” But with a new writer hired and the show on the way, he appears to have gotten over his earlier qualms.

Whedon will be executive producing this time around, and Monica Owusu-Breen, who worked with Whedon on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, has been hired to write and produce the series, as well as serve as its showrunner. She is credited as the writer and showrunner for a slew of other titles including Midnight, Texas. No official script has been ordered, and the show has yet to find a director or an actor to play Buffy, so things are still in early stages.

The tone of the show was vaguely described by producers who said, “like our world, it will be richly diverse, and like the original, some aspects of the series could be seen as metaphors for issues facing us all today.” The producers reportedly intend on hiring an African American actor to play Buffy.

The show will be pitched to cable and streaming networks alike, as it has yet to find a network, but it should have no trouble finding interested parties since Buffy The Vampire Slayer was one of the most beloved and popular shows of its day.

At San Diego Comic-Con 2018, Capcom unveiled the collector’s edition of the remake of Resident Evil 2. Game producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi was on-site to announce the edition and explain what players will find in it.

The collector’s edition includes the deluxe edition of the game, which is Resident Evil 2 with a special deluxe packaging and an extra DLC pack card. The DLC pack includes two outfits for Leon and three for Claire, the Albert model of the Samurai Edge weapon, and a code to listen to the original music, rather than the remaster’s soundtrack. The collector’s edition also adds a 12-inch figure of Leon, a 32-page art book, a digital version of a 25-track album featuring songs from the game, and a poster. It’s all collected in one R.P.D. themed box.

The collector’s edition is exclusive to North America regions and you’ll have to buy it from GameStop. It costs $200 in the U.S. and $240 in Canada. Capcom revealed the box art for Resident Evil 2 and the redesign for Claire at SDCC as well. Both Claire and Leon have been given new appearances to make them look younger and less experienced than how they were presented in the original 1998 Resident Evil 2.

Our first look at Resident Evil 2’s remake was at E3 2018 in a gorgeously gruesome trailer. In the same vein as 2002’s Resident Evil remake, Resident Evil 2 is getting an overall. You’ll still be escaping the zombie horde that’s infested Raccoon City as either rookie cop Leon or college student Claire, but the game offers fresh scares and horrifying challenges for players to survive.

Resident Evil 2 is scheduled to launch for Xbox One, PS4, and PC on January 25. For more SDCC stories, be sure to check out our coverage listed below.

San Diego Comic-Con 2018 Coverage